Friday Report from Haiti

We woke up this morning with a new meaning to “Good Friday” as we realized it was our last Friday down here!

Once again we’ve spent the day sorting and more sorting of boxes of supplies. It really takes a long time to go through a big box of supplies, especially when the box may have 200 different items in it! If people only realized that it would be better to send cases of one item instead of a tiny bit of a lot of items it would sure help supplies to operate smoother. Our team of professionals have really worked hard to help us re-catagorize the supplies into categories that makes it easier for them to retrieve what they need. They thought it might offend us if they started moving things, we kept assuring them that we were happy for them to move it if it helped them. It doesn’t take all that long for us to change it on the Master Inventory list. Did I tell you we are now up to 21 pages (single spaced) of different types of supplies...and that doesn’t identify all of them seperately as we do put a lot of them into catagories.

I think David, Ken and Charley felt about like Jim and I did about their tour yesterday afternoon. It is an interesting experience, but something you can’t explain or write home about very well. It is so graphic and close to us as we ride through the streets and see all the pitiful sites and realize these people are trying to just simply exist. I can’t imagine what some of them will do when it starts the rainy season as some of their homes are simply cardboard boxes cut open and made into a shelter.

I’m proud that our Tennessee Baptist have collected so many buckets of food to send over and only the Lord knows how many lives it may help save, but I can see a desperate need for tents, blankets, clothes, etc. too. Many come to the hospital with only the clothes on their back. We helped deliver a truck load of used clothes to a local orphan’s shelter last night.

I’ll attach a few pictures from David Acres’ camera tonight. Some are of their tour yesterday and some from around the hospital compound. The one of the hospital entrance with no patients around it must be a miracle because the patients are usually in a long line trying to get in.

Our 12 hour day is almost up, so I’ll close for now and hope I can find a bite of food to eat and go take a nice (but short) 2-minute cold shower. Brrrr, I hated cold showers when I got here, but now I can’t wait to get the dust and grime off me, so I must be getting used to it. I think Jim had the hardest time getting used to it! We had to keep assuring him how good it felt! Ha.

Thanks for your prayers and support and know that we have you in our prayers too.

- Jack